Adventures of a farmer's daughter in Hawaii

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Dear Politicians: Why You Should Take That Evil Corporate Money

Thanks to the nastiness and bullying tactics of the Babes Against Biotech, some of our politicians have decided that they will comply with the demands of Naomi Carmona. She apparently is a highly regarded expert in biotechnology and should be heeded as she knows where the future of Hawaii should lie. Let’s talk a bit more about the claims she makes as fact or truth.

I’m voting for candidates who actually take money from the seed companies because it kicks the ignorance that’s infecting and contaminating our state right in the face. If a politician has a guts to stand up and say, “I know where the future is and I’m not listening to a hypocritical chic in a bikini and other nasty activists,” that’s the politician I want in office. The trendy hobby activism is really the dumbing down of Hawaii and making people so oblivious as to how biotech has moved our world forward and how it can help others around us. Logic, rational thought, research, and evidence must be our guide for the future, not the trend of the moment.

GMO Free People Don’t Care if Their Misinformation can Harm

Let’s face it, the people who proudly proclaim themselves as GMO free and A’ole GMO don’t care whether or not the information they state is true or false. The sad part about their massive misinformation campaign is that it’s deadly. Just the other day, GMO Free USA was tweeting and Facebook posting this meme associating insulin with diabetes. Um, no, that isn’t the case. Dr. Kevin Folta, does a great job and putting the “boneheads” in their place for spreading this kind of misinformation. Asking a diabetic to be afraid of one’s insulin is a death sentence with this kind of fear mongering.

The World Doesn’t Want GMOs?

Naomi, as well as other anti-GMO activists, will all claim that the rest of the world doesn’t want this technology. She, of course has no formal education other than being an activist, but somehow knows this. I walked around the BIO International Convention the last several days and was among some 20K people and I’m really not too sure that she’s telling the truth.

Little did these misguided women know that inside the exhibition hall was 65 countries featuring their GMO technology behind them. They included the very autocratic countries that they adore for their “GMO bans,” like Russia, Hungary, and China.

It’s pretty clear to me that the world does want GMOs based on what I saw here. Naomi and her crew will keep touting that there are “64 countries that ban GMOs” over and over but I’m starting to think that they aren’t being fully truthful and didn’t do their due diligence. That’s not what the 20K attendees to the BIO International Conference saw there last week.

Politicians Fueling Farm Wars with Ideology

Just when I thought the politicians couldn’t get any worse with their fear mongering campaigns, Tulsi Gabbard takes the cake today with her emailer. (She of course doesn’t let her constituents know that she has taken some $10K from Down to Earth in her campaign coffers either.)

Well, I did invite her to the farm over a year ago and she never responded. I really am irked with her mention of “GMO-free papayas.” Yes, you are dividing the farmers and knocking the ones devastated by the disease with your pitching of this kind of message. It makes me angry that uninformed politicians are taking these kinds of sides and ignoring where the world is heading. Her Down to Earth and Whole Food Markets supply a mere 1% of the Hawaii’s markets and she’s fear mongering to the general public to be afraid of food that has been tested beyond belief is unbelievable to me. What’s she saying about the 99% who buy their food at Times, Foodland, and Sack and Save? Should I feel bad for buying food that is affordable?

If she sincerely wants that “local and sustainable food supply,” I think she should ask the very people who are the ones that are “local and sustaining” the food market. The papaya farmers from my dad to others are definitely sustainable at some 40 years or more and going on 3 generations and she’s sending a snub their way. Sorry, Tulsi, this has gone on too far with your actions and words being so insincere. If you sincerely want more local food and it be sustainable, then you’d better include all the people involved right now instead of picking and choosing. You’re part of the problem if you’re not going to look at the whole picture and include all the parts. That’s not what good leaders do if they are going to solve problems.

But then again, the truth is coming out about politicians like her and others who align with activists. Russell Ruderman, a Big Island state senator finally comes clean about the truth.

The truth is out by our anti-GMO politicians. They aren’t looking out for the local people but for their own self interests in mainland activism and food elitism. It’s not about making an affordable Hawaii for all but making it harder, and harder for all the local people already having a hard time.

Some wanna be politicians/activists aren’t always very scrupulous and love to play coy too. You can fool many but you can’t fool them all.

Fern Rosenthiel, of Ohana O Kauai, makes her clueless but honest opinion of the ag workers.

Robert Harris, Sierra Club Executive Director, who posted this question when I placed a link on Kent Fonomoana’s page about the environmental groups. He’s someone who doesn’t know that Earthjustice is tied to the Sierra Club? Really? Oh, that’s why he deleted it!

Terez Amato, State Senate Candidate running on Maui against the incumbent, Roz Baker. I almost mistook Tulsi’s email for Terez’s!

The unbelievable things people say is documented all over the internet and is so easy to find because it’s everywhere. Do we as local people want the food fight to continue or are we really going to sit down and actually DO SOMETHING? If we really want to reach our goal of more local food and farms, then we’d either work together or get out of the way! A vote for these people shows that they want to continue the onslaught against ag. It’s your choice this election season.

A vote for an anti-GMO candidate is a vote for more of this to happen in our communities. Arthur Brun is a Syngenta employee and an active community contributor who recently found this on his campaign sign. Clearly, the no aloha crew has made it’s mark again.

Take that Corporate Evil Money Folks and Have NO SHAME!

Honestly, if I knew that a politician was avoiding taking Monsanto or any other corporation’s money to run their campaign, I’d be proud of them. They are telling people like the Babes Against Biotech, Hawaii SEED, the Center for Food Safety, Earthjustice, and the Sierra Club that they will not be bullied by misinformation and the non-profit activism money from the mainland. A politician, who has the bravery to stand up against these groups, deserves the local person’s respect and shows that he or she has done due diligence to researching what the truth really is.

Where was Hawaii SEED and the Babes Against Biotech when papaya farmers across our state had their farms destroyed by disease? What contribution did these activists offer to help solve this very real problem? They were not around at all and when the problem was finally solved, then they started to attack the farmers’ successes head on. Many of the members of Hawaii SEED did not laud the saving of these crops but instead started the onslaught of misinformation campaigns with well known groups like the Center for Food Safety.

The best image yet that incorporates fear and demonizes the papaya farmers has to be the one found on their website. It’s sure to bring on some shivers down your spine when you see a papaya tree and hazmat suits. Clearly, fear mongering at it’s best! These actions show that these groups are NOT about helping farmers but attacking them.

Fear mongering at it’s best comes from non-profit groups like Hawaii SEED

So who was there to help save this crop from total destruction? It was the corporations that helped to fund the research that ultimately saved Hawaii papayas. They donated the resources for this effort to help save that industry so that farmers like these could continue their farms to bring you those local, sustainable foods like papayas.

So Mr. and Ms. Politician, don’t be ashamed of who you get your campaign funding from. It sends us all a message that you have the guts and integrity to stand up for what is right for Hawaii and that you’ve done your homework. I admire people who can stand up for the truth against a loud, obnoxious and misinformed crowd that are only willing to take away things and never have anything to offer in return. They say really ugly things and I know, I have had it directed my way, but that is only a reflection on themselves, not you! You are the leaders that Hawaii needs to heal and nurture our communities and move us towards being educated and informed rather than fear mongered and kept in the dark. Be that leader and do what’s right even though it isn’t popular!

Every time you feel afraid of the activists bullying, you tell these farmers that they can’t farm and need to keep defending their work and have them leaving their fields. Is that how we are going to meet our goals towards more local food? Send us a more consistent message and take a stand for what is right. Stop allowing activism to control the conversations and take that stand. The farmers need you, the politicians, to do this. They have lost plenty of time, money, and effort continuing to defend their work. Let them fulfill their passions. Let them farm!